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V2X in the Connected Car of the Future

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October 31, 2018

The
digital car is no longer a concept of the future. Automotive connectivity
— or “connected car” applications — have now reached
critical demand. Let’s look at the systems and networks that connect the
car to the environment (V2X), the cloud (telematics), and infotainment
for passengers and drivers.

V2X:
Connecting to the Environment

The connected car, as depicted in the figure below, fits nicely into the
developing
ecosystem around the IoT. Although we typically think of
vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connectivity — with lane obstruction or
automatic braking alerts, soon the connected car will be a component of a
smart city, driven by a multifaceted connected infrastructure and mobile
devices.

Imagine traffic lights automatically changing based on traffic patterns or
responding to commute demands, or your car having the capability to search
several city blocks for a parking spot — all enabled by the
IoT.

V2X senses the environment to enable
next-generation autonomy and real-time monitoring in the connected car. There
are currently two key standards for V2X:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
802.11p: 802.11p defines wireless access in vehicular
environments (WAVE) including dedicated short-range
communications (DSRC) devices in vehicles and roadside
units (RSUs). It’s an amendment to the popular 802.11 wireless
(Wi‑Fi) networking standards. DSRC operates in the 5.9 gigahertz (GHz)
band with bandwidth of 75 megahertz (MHz) and an approximate range of
1,000 meters.

Cellular vehicular-to-everything (C‑V2X) cellular long-term
evolution (LTE): C‑V2X is designed to support active safety and
help enhance situational awareness by detecting and exchanging information
using low-latency direct transmission in the 5.9 GHz Intelligent
Transportation System (ITS) band for V2V, V2I, and
vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) situations, with no need for cellular
subscription or any network assistance. C‑V2X is defined by the Third
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 14 specifications,
including PC5-based direct communications, with a clear evolution path
towards 5G New Radio (5GNR).

Today, IEEE 802.11p–based products are
available on the market. Many of today’s vehicles are already equipped
with IEEE 802.11p technology. In contrast, C‑V2X is just beginning its
entrance into the automotive arena. With today’s cellular eco-system
strength, C‑V2X will most likely mature quickly (see the following figure).
There may be pros and cons to both technologies, but ultimately it will be a
combination of consumer preference and technology that determines how well
both technologies succeed in the 5G arena.

V2X will also enable more efficient fleet management and platooning with
V2V communications.

Finally, V2X is being used to enhance the capabilities in advanced driver
assistance systems (ADAS). ADAS typically employ cameras and radar
sensors to provide visibility around a vehicle to a range of about
200 meters. V2X applications can share and coordinate information to
extend the effective range of ADAS up to several kilometers.

Tip: LiDAR technologies such as onboard safety systems and
sensors — for example, lasers, scanners, photodetector receivers, and
GPS — also work alongside V2X and will be key enablers of autonomous
vehicles.

Telematics:
Vehicles Communicating with the Cloud

Telematics provides high-bandwidth
connectivity for IoT integration and cloud services. Telematics has been used
in commercial vehicles for quite some time to help businesses monitor and
optimize various operational factors, such as:

Fuel consumption

Vehicle maintenance

Fleet utilization

Vehicle location

Optimum routing

Driver behavior

Telematics in the connected car of the future will encompass all cellular
standards to deliver 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) capabilities, quickly
following leading smartphone capabilities.

Technical Stuff:Gigabit LTE is
poised to be included in everything from smartphones and laptops to portable
hot spots and vehicles. Gigabit LTE refers to LTE Category 16
(CAT16 LTE) downstream, which was introduced in 3GPP Release 12.
Today’s implementations have Gigabit LTE paired with LTE
Category 13 uplink for uploads up to 150 Mbps. CAT16 LTE is leading
to 5G low latency and higher reliability employing 256 quadrature
amplitude modulation (QAM), 3x20 megahertz (MHz) carrier
aggregation (CA), and 4x4 multiple input/multiple output (MIMO).
QAM, CA, and MIMO are combined in various configurations for each LTE
Category, resulting in their rated maximum speeds. The actual rated downlink
speed achieved through this combination of technologies is not quite
1 Gbps, but close — 979 megabits per second (Mbps).

The telematics units in the car will be the primary data connection to the
car, quickly demanding more data as automobile manufacturers try to match
smartphone services. Mobile telecommunications carriers and vehicle OEMs will
be motivated to monetize telematics data to the car, which will drive
increased complexity in telematics systems. The next figure illustrates a
telematics cellular front-end module (FEM).

A key advantage of telematics over smartphones is antenna performance. In
automobile telematics, the antenna is typically located in the shark fin,
outside the car’s metal body. A smartphone located inside a vehicle
means the antenna is within the metal body of the car. This degrades antenna
performance, unless your dog is using your smartphone, in which case his head
is sticking outside the window! Why? Because the vehicle acts like a Faraday
cage — a grounded metal screen surrounding a piece of equipment, which
excludes electrostatic and electromagnetic influences. To mitigate this
Faraday cage effect, vehicle manufacturers are adding all telematics antennas,
including cellular, to the shark fin. This allows users to connect their
smartphones to the vehicle, thereby eliminating the Faraday cage effect.

Tip: Automakers may be forced to support multiple carriers
using Dual subscriber identity module (SIM) dual active (DSDA)
technology. You can learn more about DSDA in Chapter 4 of Connected
Car For Dummies.

Infotainment: People Interacting with Vehicles

Today’s infotainment systems allow passengers to connect outside the
car as well as inside the car. Some infotainment applications include
entertainment (including high-definition and satellite radio), navigation,
search, and more. Key enabling protocols include Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth (see the
following figure).

Wi‑Fi hot spots in the car will be the primary connection that will enable
a multi-user interface similar to home Wi‑Fi
networks today. Wi‑Fi will deliver 1 Gbps data via the telematics
unit in connected cars, to be used by all occupants of the car. The heavy use
of Wi‑Fi hot spots and new implementations of V2X will also create new safety
challenges in the connected car. For example, V2X and 5 GHz Wi‑Fi will
have significant spectrum co-existence challenges that will need to be
addressed using innovative filter products.

Filter
products reduce out-of-band interferences between radio
frequency (RF) bands such as cellular, Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, and so on. Many
of these bands are very close to each other and filtering is required to
manage interference between systems. For example, within the 2.4 GHz
Wi‑Fi band, there is an increased potential for interference with
cellular communications, like band 41 in the 4G LTE band. RF
designers use coexistence filters to address the potential for transmitted
Wi‑Fi signals to desensitize LTE receiver reception, and for LTE signals to
interfere with Wi‑Fi communications. Bulk acoustic
wave (BAW) filters are very effective at meeting these
requirements.

Filters also aid in providing a safety factor. Proper bandpass filters
mitigate interferences between bands such as the cellular LTE band 13 and
the public safety band used by the United States public safety services.
Without these filters, safety services could be interrupted.

As more vehicle and network services are added, design challenges will
follow. The vehicle is becoming crammed with many RF signals, increased data
processing, and more functionality. Negotiating the intricate balance between
each of these within the vehicle are discussed further in Chapter 4 of
Connected Car For Dummies.

Want to learn more about the connected car of the future? Download your
free copy of Qorvo’s Connected Car For
Dummies e-book.

– Excerpted with
permission from John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from Connected Car
For Dummies.

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